Number of Parents

156

Mean Age of the Parents

44.76

Percent Male

46.79

Mean Age of Children

11.81

Percent Boys

54.48

Table 1: Number of Children per School and Grade

Introduction

Vignettes

Intro text BLa bla bla This is the online dashboard that is part of a study on parent consent. The main question of this study is how appropriate parents of children in primary- and secondary school perceive active- and passive informed consent for participation of their child(ren) in scientific research in the school context. Specifically, this study investigated the difference in perceived appropriateness between active- and passive parental informed consent for a variety of research types conducted in the school context. Per research type, parents indicated how appropriate they think both active- and passive parental informed consent are in the setting. For each research type, a reversed inferior hypothesis was tested by using a Bayesian paired sample t-test. This means that we were looking for evidence that passive consent was at least as appropriate as active consent, or passive consent was more appropriate. Moreover, the study also asked a number of exploratory questions, each addressed in one of the tabs above. For example, we studied specific questions that form exceptions to passive consent, reasons for (not) responding to invitations to consent to studies in the school context, appropriateness of an umbrella consent for multiple studies in a school year, the communication with parents and providing consent, acceptability of sharing data and appropriate reward for a child’s participation in scientific studies.

Scores on perceived appropriateness of active and passive parental consent for different types of researh in the school context. Error bars show 95% confidence interval.

Table 2: Perceived Appropriateness of Active and Passive Parental Consent

Figure 1: Measurement of the Outcome Variables

Figure 2: Perceived Appropriateness of Active and Passive Parental Consent

Figure 3: Perceived Appropriateness for Primary School Children

Text

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Figure 4: Perceived Appropriateness for Secondary School Children

How Appropriate is Passive Consent when Participants are Asked About …

Were were interested whether parents would regard certain topics of interested to our projects as more or less appropriate for passive consent. Therefore we asked the parents how appropriate passive consent is for surveys when we ask questions pertaining to their happiness and mental well-being, about their friends and who they are, about the situation at home, and personal identifiable information such as name or address. In Table 3 and Figure 5, we have also added the genaral appropriateness of passive consent from the vignettes. The general label refers to the appropriateness of passive consent for surveys form the vignettes. As indicated in the table and the figure, …

Table 3: Specific Themes in Survey and Passive Consent

Figure 5: Specific Themes in Survey and Passive Consent

Creating Media Content

In our lab, we pride ourselves for using a blended science approach. In our projects, we cooperate with youth to design our studies. Specifically, together with the children we co-create media content such as instagram posts os tiktok videos. Therefore, we asked the parents were asked how appropriate passive consent is for co-creation when participants will make photo’s or video’s.
With a mean score of 3.57 this was not perceived as appropriate by the parents, as it is below the mid-point of the scale and considerable lower than the appropriateness of passive consent for co-creation in general (4.69). Therefore, we advise researchers to ask for active parental consent when co-creating media messages. This is also in line with… media content could be identifiable, faces, places or names.

Cluster Consent in General

The parents in the study were shown a video about a specific format for obtaining parental consent for multiple studies within one school year. Specifically, parents are asked to provide active parental consent at the start of the school year for a series of studies on a determined topic. For each study within the school year, parents are informed and have the opportunity to opt-out. We have termed this cluster consent.
The parents in this study were asked to respond to the idea of the cluster consent in general. Again they used the faces scale and could select the face that best matched their beliefs. The range was between 1 and 7 as shown in Figure 1.
Compared of the average scores of the 10 vignettes, the cluster consent scored a bit higher. But, be aware, these two scores are not entirely comparable. The passive and active scores are the averages of the vignette. The cluster score was just one single item measuring appropriateness in general.


In the next question, participants gave a bit more information about the cluster consent for the different research methods. Contrary to the vignettes, they did not rate the appropriateness on a scale from 1 to 7, but they could indicate per research type if they thought the cluster consent would be appropriate (yes vs no). Here are the percents of “yes” per research method.
As can be seen in Figure 6, the majority of the parents was open to the concept of cluster consent for Survey, Observation, *

Table 4 : Cluster Consent Compared to Active and Passive consent

Figure 6: Is cluster Consent Appropriate per Research Method

Table 5:

The Differences Between Those Who Were Approached Before

Given that so few of our participants were approached before, we wondered if this had an effect on the ratings for active and passive consent. The ratings of both active and passive consent were slightly higher for those who have been approached previously. However, the differences between active and passive consent were comparable between both groups (BF = 0.15).

Table 7:

Responding to Invites for Academic Research

Participants were asked whether they have been approached previously to provide consent for their child in academic research. Follow-up questions asked about research why people did not respond previously.

As can be seen in the table on the left, the majority of the parents in our sample was never approached before.

Table 6:

But When Approached Before

Of the 37 participants that were approached previously, almost everybody did respond! Only two people answered that they did not respond to a previous invite.

The first participants indicated that (s)he had forgotten to respond.

The second participants said (s)he did not respond because a passive consent procedure was used.

Communicating With Parents

Participants were asked via which channels they like to opt-in or opt-out of the study. Participants could select multiple channels. In the figure, we have plotted the percentage of participants that selected the channel. we have annotated the exact number of participants next the the end of the bar. Because participants could select multiple channels, the total of the percentages does not add up to 100%.

Email and website were the most selected channels. When participants selected other, they could give a suggestion. One of these suggestions was via an app, the other text field was left blank.





Moreover, participants were asked how important it is that communication about the study is done in the same way the school normally communicates with the parents. The participants could respond with not at all (1) to very important (7). On average, the score was 5.82 (SD = 1.28), meaning that most of them agreed that it is important to use the schools’ existing channels of communication.

Firgure 7: Using School’s Communication Channels

Figure 8: How to Communicate With Parents

Sharing the Research Data

Participants were asked whether they have problems with sharing the research data, given that identifiable information is deleted. Specifically, we wanted to know parents view sharing of the data with other colleagues, alongside the academic report or paper, with the other participants of the study or sharing the data online for everybody to see. Participants could respond the the statements, e.g., I think it is problematic when data is shared with the other participants in a study on a 7 point Likert scale, ranging from completely disagree (1) to completely agree (7). Here, we reflected the values, so that higher scores mean less problematic.

Table 8: Sharing the Research Data

Figure 9:

Sharing data

It seems that parents do not think that sharing the data with academic colleagues is problematic. The mean score is above the midpoint on the scale and there is a clear peak at 6.

However, sharing the data together with the report, with the other participants of the study or putting the data on a website is seen as a problem by most parents.

Figure 10: Rewarding Participants

Rewarding Children

Participants were asked what they think would be a fair reward for participation in scientific studies. Participants could select select multiple rewards. In the figure, we have plotted the percentage of participants that selected the channel. we have annotated the exact number of participants next the the end of the bar. Because participants could select multiple rewards, the total of the percentages does not add up to 100%.

A gift for the whole class, a gift for the individual child were the most selected rewards. Around one in three participants indicated that it was also not necessary to reward the participants, as it is important to participate in scientific studies. When participants selected other, they could give a suggestion. One of these suggestions was to donate money to charity chosen by the children. Another suggestion was to handout discount coupons for excursion. The last interesting suggestion was to let the children decide what they want.

In addition, participants who selected some form of momentary reward were asked to add what they thought would be a fair amount of euro’s per hour. As can be seen, the amount vary heavily, between 1€ and 50€ per hour. But looking at the mean (7,33€),median and the mode (both 5€), the results suggests that 5€ per hour is reasonable for the parents.

Table 9: Monitary Rewards for Children

Thabo van Woudenberg

Thabo van Woudenberg (PhD) is a postdoc researcher at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Science at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is a member and scientific coordinator of the SocialMovez project, as part of the Movez Lab. The overall aim of this project is to develop and test a framework for effective and responsible health campaigns, using online social networks to identify and motivate peer influencers while safeguarding digital privacy. His studies in particular focus on social network influences on health-related behaviors in adolescents.

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Esther Rozendaal

Esther Rozendaal (PhD) is associate professor of Digital Resilience in the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Science at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a member of the Movez Lab, a research team with a shared interest in young people, digital media, and wellbeing. In 2020, she was awarded a Vidi grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for a research project investigating how teenagers can be empowered to use digital media in a safe and responsible manner. Rozendaal is also interested in studying the role of advertising literacy in young people’s responses to advertising.

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Moniek Buijzen

Moniek Buijzen (PhD) is professor of Communication and Behavioural Change in the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Behavioural Science Institute at Radboud University, both in the Netherlands. In her research she investigates how to harness the potential of digital media technology to improve young people’s well-being, while minimizing potential risks. Her work has been funded by prestigious grants of the European Research Council (ERC) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and has been recognized with awards of several international communication associations. Buijzen strives for a continuous interaction between research and innovative technological applications and embraces a ‘blended science’ approach, integrating research, teaching, and science-society collaboration.

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Erasmus University

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is an internationally oriented university with a strong social orientation in its education and research, as expressed in our mission ‘Creating positive societal impact’. EUR is home to 3.700 academics and professionals and almost 33.000 students from more than 140 countries. Everything we do, we do under the credo The Erasmian Way – Making Minds Matter. We’re global citizens, connecting, entrepreneurial, open-minded, and socially involved. These Erasmian Values function as our internal compass and create EUR’s distinctive and recognizable profile. From these values, with a broad perspective and with an eye for diversity, different backgrounds and opinions, our employees work closely together to solve societal challenges from the dynamic and cosmopolitan city of Rotterdam. Thanks to the high quality and positive societal impact of our research and education, EUR can compete with the top European universities. www.eur.nl.

SocialMovez

Online social networks such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat offer unprecedented technological possibilities to promote a healthy lifestyle among young people. For example, through influencers in their online network. With our research, we want to make online health campaigns more effective while safeguarding young people’s digital privacy.

SocialMovez investigates how health campaigns for young people can be spread more effectively through peer influencers in online social networks. We focus on promoting healthy behaviors such as physical activity or healthy eating habits. In our research we aim to identify peer influencers in young people’s online social networks and motivate them to engage in the health campaign.

We use innovative technologies in the field of data analysis to optimize online (health) campaigns without compromising the privacy of young people. We co-create our campaign messages and strategies with young people, parents, and health professionals.

MediaMovez

Young people grow up in a world where computers, tablets and smartphones are omnipresent. These digital media technologies offer important opportunities in the fields of entertainment, education, communication and cultural development. This being said, there are also risks involved that can affect their well-being and safety. Our research highlights the ways in which young people can take full advantage of the opportunities that digital media provides. Simultaneously, we emphasize how youth can cope with the potential risks of digital media use. Education to promote media literacy is indispensable for this.

MediaMovez helps in the development of effective media literacy education programs. Through research, we can contribute by developing education programs that help children interact with digital media in a more autonomous, safe and responsible way.

MediaMovez uses a media empowerment approach. This approach aims to strengthen the skills that young people need to use digital media independently and in a media-smart way.

Contact details

Linkedin

Website

movez@eur.nl